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Part 2

“Oh, no...”

Vanessa did her best to fix her pleated skirt over her diaper. Eventually, she managed to cover up the crinkling plastic, but only barely, and she knew that the slightest bit of carelessness could spell utter humiliation.

The girl clenched the bottom of the skirt with her hands through most of the morning, walking awkwardly through the halls and trying to ward off anyone she saw staring with her patented mean glares. For her classes, she tried to sit as far back as she could, striking back-row seats in physics and history, but only a spot in the middle section in English - where she was so consumed with keeping herself covered up that she lost track completely of what the teacher was saying.

In math class, her last of the day, the girl secured a spot in the fourth of five rows, and sat down as slowly as she could to avoid making any crinkling noise. She shuffled obsessively in her seat as the teacher began handing out the last week’s tests, but found her attention turning quickly to the pile of papers tossed in front of her.

Forty-three.

In her entire academic life, Vanessa had never received such a low score. It was one thing for her grades to slip as they had been doing throughout the year so far - something she chalked up to stress and senioritis. But this was on a far different level - this could prevent her from graduating on time altogether. Vanessa gulped nervously, and then leaned forward to better examine the result.

Leaning forward, as it turned out, was a terrible mistake.

The girl was still trying to make sense of the first page of the test when she heard a snickering behind her. As it dawned on her what the noise meant, her face went briefly pale and her head turned up slowly.

Then, gathering up a burst of energy, Vanessa swerved her head around and gave the meanest glare she could to the boy seated behind her. Quickly, he stopped laughing and softly put both hands up as he turned from her gaze.

With that momentarily under control, Vanessa turned once again to the other crisis of the day, trying her hardest to make sense of what went wrong on her test. She had hoped there had been a mistake in grading, or at least some sort of simple misunderstanding on her part that she could point to as cause for the result, but no.

For page after page, the girl was left completely baffled by what had been asked, unable to make any sense at all of what she should have put down in the answers, or what she did - even when it was marked correct. Frustrated, she shoved the test into her backpack and tried her best to focus on the rest of the class, though the vast majority of it flew over her head.

When the bell finally rang, Vanessa knew there was one more thing she needed to do. Patiently, she waited in her seat for the other students to pack their bags and get up, making special note of the boy who sat behind her. When he rose, she followed, tailing him until he was out in the hallway, where she finally grabbed his shoulder to confront him.

“Hey,” she said harshly, sticking a finger against the boy’s chest, “I don’t know what you thought you saw back there, but if you say a word, I will ruin you. I will fucking ruin you. Got that?”

“Yeah, yeah…” the boy mumbled, trying to turn away. He was a head taller than Vanessa, and he knew her secret now, but still her reputation had a way of making people nervous.

“I said, got that!?” Vanessa’s voice was even angrier now, her face a bright red.

“Got it.” The boy said timidly, again making a surrendering motion with his hands before backing away.

“Good.” Vanessa exhaled and lowered her hands back down to her skirt, where she would hold them tightly until the end of her bus ride home.

That evening, Vanessa did some shopping, buying as many long skirts and loose-fitting dresses as she could find, desperate to avoid another incident like the one in math class.